The UK Book Biz in 2007

Robert McCrum in the Observer reviews fortunes of the UK publishing world in 2007, and reports that in a year dominated by "HP7":

Rowling's reported wealth would rise this year to £545m, but the reality of literary life was rubbed in when, last March, a survey of some 25,000 authors revealed that the typical British writer earned only about £4,000 a year (significantly less than the £6,300 reported in 2001). Blogging and the internet might have liberated the writer from the garret, but it seems that you still cannot take the garret out of the writer.

He also slips in this, which will no doubt delight many of you:

From some points of view, 'literary fiction' is becoming as much a genre as science fiction.

And I was always snobbish enough to think that it was at the burning sun centre of the universe with everything else in orbit, dreaming of becoming it!